A neglected legacy: Massenpsychologie und ich-analyse in the era of nations and nationalism

Abstract

This paper discusses the influence of Sigmund Freud, in particular that of his book Massenpsychologie und ich-analyse, on the academic representation of nationalism. Written after World War I, just before the rise of the fascist regimes that would lead to World War II and the Nazi Holocaust, Massenpsychologie very quickly became a work of reference for understanding the politics of the “masses” and the “irrational” behaviour of the multitudes. Although Freud did not write the book with the express desire to analyse any particular contemporary political doctrine or ideology, his psychodynamic interpretation of collective conduct would, in the following decades, constitute the foundation for explaining and denouncing the behaviour of mass nationalism, both within academia and beyond.